Newly obtained 911 calls reveal locked classroom doors, students hiding in the dark, and a 15-year-old girl left with a facial laceration during a large fight that erupted at East Technical High School around 12:30 p.m. on September 28. Staff members and a parent dialed 911 as Cleveland Metropolitan School District security requested police assistance, according to a police report on the incident.
The calls and cell phone video, obtained by the FOX 8 I-Team, capture the panic inside the East 55th Street building that day. One 911 caller described a large riot at the school, while another caller said kids were out of control. The video shows police cruisers and ambulances arriving outside as the situation unfolded, and a teacher reported she was in a room with students and the door was locked.
A parent told a dispatcher that her daughter had been attacked, saying the girl was jumped by a group of girls and hid with other students in a dark classroom. Among the injuries described in the calls was a 15-year-old girl who was assaulted and suffered a facial laceration, per the same FOX 8 report.
District Calls It Not a Riot
A Cleveland Metropolitan School District official described the incident as not a riot, according to the I-Team's reporting, and said CMSD Safety and Security commonly communicates with and receives assistance from Cleveland police. That characterization stands in contrast to the 911 callers who used the word riot and described kids as out of control — a discrepancy the station's report leaves for readers to weigh against the firsthand accounts.
Cuyahoga County prosecutors said investigators were still sorting out what happened, and several teens may face felony criminal charges as cases remain under review. The Cleveland police report on the incident includes little additional detail beyond what the 911 calls and video captured.
Union Leader Demands Accountability
Cleveland Teachers Union President Errol Savage said violence should not happen inside a school and urged the mayor, superintendent, and district to work more closely to make school buildings safe. Savage's comments to the I-Team come as he and CMSD Chief Executive Officer Dr. Warren Morgan have been publicly addressing safety concerns across district properties following a rash of vehicle break-ins that, according to WKYC, previously forced Sunbeam School to close when 75% of its staff called off out of safety fears.
The September 28 fight came weeks after several hundred East Tech students staged a walkout to protest the district's decision to reassign four teachers mid-semester under its annual fall staffing adjustment policy, as PBS reported in October. That unrest followed a broader restructuring at the school: CMSD's Building Brighter Futures initiative, approved in January 2026, began consolidating smaller specialized schools into larger comprehensive high schools and phased out East Tech's decade-old horticulture program, according to Signal Cleveland.
A District Already Under Scrutiny
This is not the first time this year that violence inside a CMSD high school has drawn public attention. In August, a Cleveland mother publicly called for stronger enforcement of the district's anti-bullying policy after her son was beaten unconscious at Max S. Hayes High School. Staffing shortages have also plagued the district's security apparatus for years; a January 2023 Signal Cleveland report documented severe fights and gun violence threats at Marion C. Seltzer Elementary School after the building's sole part-time guard had already ended their shift for the day.
CMSD operates its own Department of Safety and Security and remains the only public school district in Ohio that employs its own sworn, OPOTA-certified police officers alongside building security officers, according to the district. Ohio law, under Revised Code Section 5502.262, requires all public schools to maintain a comprehensive Emergency Management Plan with threat assessment protocols and parental notification procedures, submitted to the Ohio School Safety Center every three years and tested annually.
Founded in 1908 as Greater Cleveland's first public trade school, East Technical High School currently enrolls approximately 487 students at its campus in the city's Central neighborhood, per the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. The fight comes as CMSD overall continues to face scrutiny over academic performance, having earned an overall rating of 2.5 out of 5 stars on Ohio's 2025-2026 state report card, well below the statewide average.
